Crypt Keeper’s $4,000 Cognac Offers Entry to Paradise

Barrels of Cognac

Hundreds of barrels of Cognac aging quietly for decades at Tesseron in Chateauneuf-sur-Charente, France. The maitre de chai decides when the eau-de-vie in one barrel should be blended with another.

Hundreds of barrels of Cognac aging quietly for decades at Tesseron in Chateauneuf-sur-Charente, France. The maitre de chai decides when the eau-de-vie in one barrel should be blended with another. Photographer: Elin McCoy/Bloomberg

Jacky Martial

Elin McCoy/Bloomberg

Jacky Martial, maitre de chai of Cognac Tesseron, holds a sample of an 1860 “reference” Cognac in the company’s `paradis’ of old stocks in Chateauneuf-sur-Charente, France. One of three cellars holding the priceless collection, it’s in the crypt of a 12th-century abbey.

Jacky Martial, maitre de chai of Cognac Tesseron, holds a sample of an 1860 “reference” Cognac in the company’s `paradis’ of old stocks in Chateauneuf-sur-Charente, France. One of three cellars holding the priceless collection, it’s in the crypt of a 12th-century abbey. Photographer: Elin McCoy/Bloomberg

Tesseron’s Extreme

Elin McCoy/Bloomberg

A bottle of Tesseron ultra-luxury Cognac, Extreme. The bottle, modeled after old glass `dame-jeannes’ of Cognac among Tesseron’s reserve stocks, holds 1.75 liters and comes in a shiny red, black or white box.

A bottle of Tesseron ultra-luxury Cognac, Extreme. The bottle, modeled after old glass `dame-jeannes’ of Cognac among Tesseron’s reserve stocks, holds 1.75 liters and comes in a shiny red, black or white box. Photographer: Elin McCoy/Bloomberg

This 1860 is pretty spectacular in its own right. But it’s
just one of several elements in a luxury Cognac blend, the
$4,000, Tesseron Extreme.

I’m at the small Tesseron distillery in Chateauneuf-sur-
Charente to discover how it creates elixirs that make Cognac
aficionados dig so deep into their pockets.

Founded in 1905 by Cognac collector Abel Tesseron in the
Cognac region north of Bordeaux, the company produced eaux-de-
vie from its two estates and quietly peddled its rare old stocks
to big houses like Hennessy (MC) for nearly a century.

In 2001, it started a line of XO Cognacs (extra old) under
its own name. Extreme, its longest-aged and priciest, was
introduced more than two years ago.

Maitre de Chai Jacky Martial, 57 and looking dapper in a
slightly iridescent gray suit and close-cropped gray beard,
grabs a large ring of keys from a cupboard hidden under the
stairs for our tour.

Eaux-de-Vie

The first stop is the beamed ceiling distillery, where
brick-based Charentais potstills crowned with onion-shaped
copper heads are double distilling white wine into eaux-de-vie.
The grapes include ugni blanc (for roundness), colombard (for
depth) and difficult-to-grow folle blanche (for finesse) from
the region’s top two districts, Petite Champagne and Grande
Champagne. Almost all Tesseron’s Cognacs are from Grande
Champagne.

Next we head down the street to the cellars, where after
distillation, the eaux-de-vie spend decades mellowing in
Limousin oak barrels.

“Great Cognac,” Martial explains, “requires aging and
the blender’s nose.” He is constantly tasting, combining one
barrel with another, slowly building Cognac blends.

There I sip a five-year-old with pear flavors and a caramel
aroma that holds a hint of its future.

A 10-year example smells and tastes of candied oranges and
flowers. In a 20-year-blend, I detect dried fruit, honeysuckle,
and spice; in one that’s 50 years old, dark chocolate, espresso,
tobacco.

Slow oxidation and natural evaporation through barrel pores
in a damp cellar like Tesseron’s reduces alcohol and refines
Cognac’s fire into softer, creamier, muted warmth. The
equivalent of thousands of bottles – the poetically named
Angel’s Share — disappears into the atmosphere.

‘Paradis’

All these barrels find their way into Tesseron’s standard
portfolio, including its delicious Royal Blend being introduced
at Vinexpo Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong next month. They’ll have to
age another generation or two before they make it into Extreme.

Martial finally unlocks a door to the Tesseron family’s
ancient stocks, some of them more than 175 years old.

Rows of glass demijohns, each holding about 25 liters, are
lined up on metal shelves. Some are wrapped in straw baskets.

This is one of three “paradis” locations, so that if there
is a fire at one — heaven forbid — all is not lost.

“This collection is priceless,” says Martial, as he hands
me a glass of 1900, then an 1865. (They’re “references” rather
than vintages, as the eaux-de-vie in an old Cognac don’t always
come from a single harvest.) The 1865 is powerful, zesty, and
complex, with satiny layers of heady dried fruit. I decide it
would be churlish to spit in paradise.

Creaking Gate

Behind a cobwebbed iron gate that creaks when Martial
pushes it open is the oldest “paradis,” with hundreds of crusted
jugs, including the 1860, carrying faded tags.

I try to estimate the value of the 2000 demijohns stored
here. Last September a single bottle of vintage 1858 Cognac
Croizet Cuvee Leonie sold at a Shanghai auction for $157,000. It
took Martial a year to finalize Extreme’s blend of elements,
each more than 100 years old.

Glass shelves in his office hold a bottled library of the
company’s eaux-de-vie whose aromas and flavors he has committed
to memory. Colors range from gold (youngest) to amber (middle
aged) to mahogany brown (oldest). He mixed up five trial blends
for Extreme in test tubes, and then let them marry for several
months.

“Older Cognacs don’t always go together,” he explains.
“They’re like people who get more opinionated as they age. When
you put them all in the same room, their characters may clash.”

He considered 35 lots, and finally ended up with 10
including Cognacs from 1853 and 1906, which played well with
others like the 1900, 1865, and the 1860. The resulting blend is
considerably more than the sum of the parts.

Limited Production

Tesseron only makes 300 1.75-liter bottles of Extreme a
year, with the lion’s share of about 70 percent sold in Taiwan,
Hong Kong, China, and Singapore.